1 Glaciers change over the last century, Caucasus Mountains, 2 Georgia, observed by the old topographical maps, Landsat 3 and ASTER satellite imagery 4 5 L. G. Tielidze 6 7 Department of Geomorphology, Vakhushti Bagrationi Institute of Geography, Ivane 8 Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, 6 Tamarashvili st. Tbilisi 0177, Georgia 9 10 Correspondence to: L. G. Tielidze (
[email protected]) 11 12 13 Abstract 14 15 The study of glaciers in the Caucasus began in the first quarter of the 18th century. The 16 first data on glaciers can be found in the works of great Georgian scientist Vakhushti 17 Bagrationi. After almost hundred years the foreign scientists began to describe the 18 glaciers of Georgia. Information about the glaciers of Georgia can be found in the 19 works of W. Abich, D. Freshfield, G. Radde, N. Dinik, I. Rashevskiy, A. Reinhardt etc. The 20 first statistical information about the glaciers of Georgia are found in the catalog of the 21 Caucasus glaciers compiled by K. Podozerskiy in 1911. Then, in 1960s the large-scale 22 (1 : 25 000, 1 : 50 000) topographic maps were published, which were compiled in 23 1955–1960 on the basis of the airphotos. On the basis of the mentioned maps R. 24 Gobejishvili gave quite detailed statistical information about the glaciers of Georgia. Then 25 in 1975 the results of glaciers inventory of the former USSR was published, where the 26 statistical information about the glaciers of Georgia was obtained on the basis of the 27 almost same time (1955-1957) aerial images.